The cultural history of what is now Ontario stretches back more than 10,000 years. Many Nations and many peoples have called this place home. MyOntario – A vision over time marks this long history by opening a conversation among Ontarians about our experiences, identities, values and aspirations.
We are asking people from across the province to share their stories – the places, memories, photos, artifacts, artworks and traditions that inspire you, that motivate you and help define who you are. Be the province's storytellers, record keepers, historians and visionaries!
Let's build a deeper understanding, showcase our diversity and create a lasting record that reflects the breadth, depth and complexity of our great province as we look to the future.
Stephen Otto
I feel a sense of belonging when I walk down the Main Street of almost any Ontario town or small city where many of the buildings date from the late 19th or early 20th century. This sense comes partly from efforts by the Ontario Heritage Foundation [now the Ontario Heritage Trust] and Ministry of Cu
Nathan Tidridge
Her Majesty's beautiful @MohawkChapel - the oldest Protestant church in #MyOntario. #ChapelRoyal
Delany Leitch, Backus-Page House Museum
The Tyrconnell Cheese Factory was established in 1865 by John Pearce on his own farm, and was the first cheese factory in the district. At that time, cheese boxes were not even available in all of Elgin County, so Mr. Pearce and his men had to make the long and slow journey to Ingersoll and back in
Andrew Riddle (Partner at ASI)
For millennia, the Grand River served as a highway for the First Nations people of Southern Ontario, connecting broad expanses of the Golden Horseshoe inland to Lake Erie. The banks of the Grand River have sometimes been characterized as one long archaeological site, and that proved to be true for a
Atom Egoyan (film director, writer and producer)
R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant
Whenever I have visitors to Toronto, I take them to the Harris Filtration Plant. This beautiful complex is one of the few remaining examples of industrial art deco design that has survived to this day, and its location on Lake Ontario makes it truly unique. It ha
Sam Steiner (Managing Editor of the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online and retired archivist from the Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
The cloud of witnesses
As a historian of Mennonites in Ontario, I have always enjoyed wandering through Mennonite and Amish cemeteries. Whether plain Old Order Amish or Old Order Mennonite cemeteries with only simple markers, or assimilated Mennonite cemeteries with a greater variety of monuments,
Gabriela Iglecias
Chez moi, avec ma communauté!
- Gabriela Iglecias - National Aboriginal Day at Fort York National Historic Site - June 21, 2017
MyOntario is ...
We are bringing MyOntario – A vision over time to communities across the province to find out what Ontario means to you!
In 2017, our MyOntario roadshow and interactive kiosks are coming to community events, museums and more. It’s a unique chance to join a provincewide conversation about our expe
Sexual Diversity Activism at the University of Toronto
Having first met off campus, the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA) convened again on November 4, 1969, at University College to advocate equality and freedom for gay men and lesbians. This was the first group of its kind at a Canadian university. Early on, UTHA attracted supporters
The Honourable David Onley (28th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario)
Thoughts about Ontario at 150
The photo became an heirloom in our family: a picture of Her Majesty the Queen at Kew Gardens in The Beach, escorted by Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe on a blistering hot June 1959 day, viewing dozens of kids in wheelchairs. The large banner framing the area pr
Alicia Hawkins
In 2006 Laurentian University and University of Toronto students were excavating at the Thomson-Walker site in Simcoe County. This is a large Huron-Wendat village located on an Ontario Heritage Trust property. I clearly remember the day that one of the students came rushing over to me holding this a
Karolyn Smardz Frost (archaeologist, historian and award-winning author)
Digging for the Promised Land
In 1985, the Toronto school board and Ontario's culture ministry created the Archaeological Resource Centre. There, schoolchildren and volunteers could dig into their own city's past, and explore the multi-cultures that make Ontario's heritage so remarkably rich.
Un
Steve Paikin (anchor, The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVOntario)
Heaven on earth
A month before Ontario turns 150 years old, I’ll celebrate my 57th birthday. I’ve lived all but one of those years in the province of Ontario and all of them in big cities. But my favourite location in the province is somewhere I only spend a few weeks a year.
My first trip to Ma
Karin Almuhtadi
Home ♥
- Karin Almuhtadi, Bay and Algoma Buskers Festival, Thunder Bay, July 30, 2017
Fool’s Paradise
This property sits on the ecologically sensitive, geologically significant Scarborough Bluffs that display sediments left by glaciers over 70,000 years ago during the last phase of the Pleistocene epoch. Aboriginal peoples may have inhabited this site as early as 8,000 B.C. Scottish immigrant James
M. Margaret Froh (President of the Métis Nation of Ontario)
The Métis sash
Métis youth leader Katelyn LaCroix was recently asked what being Métis meant to her. She replied that “like the sash, we are two cultures coming together to create something new and beautiful and useful.” This comparison is as apt as it is poetic because the sash is such an essentia
R. Dennis Moore (Archivist, Multicultural History Society of Ontario)
This is the temporary passport of Arthur Schönberg, an Estonian naval engineer who risked the high seas to secure a new life in Canada. Although I have never met Mr. Schönberg, his story has been preserved on audiotape by the Multicultural History Society of Ontario.
Arthur Schönberg had a lot of
Janet Haughton
Naturally beautiful!
- Janet Haughton, Canuck It Up Festival Amherstburg, downtown Amherstburg, August 6, 2017
MyOntario is ...
We are bringing MyOntario – A vision over time to communities across the province to find out what Ontario means to you!
In 2017, our MyOntario roadshow and interactive kiosks are coming to community events, museums and more. It’s a unique chance to join a provincewide conversation about our experiences, identities, values and aspirations.
Visit the links below to view MyOntario photos on Flickr.
MyOntario photo galleries:
September 30: Doors Open Timmins (Timmins)September 23: Doors Open Grimsby (Grimsby)September 10: Leslieville Flea (Toronto)August 26-27: Afro-Carib Festival (Scar
From an interview with Josephine Mandamin (“Water Walker,” grandmother and a 2015 recipient of a Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation)
Walking with the water
When we walk with the water, we pray for the water. The water that we carry, we pray for it, and we pray to it; we speak to it. Our minds and our hearts are with the water that we carry. The water is very precious. We have adopted it. We picked it up from where we walk from,
Yannick Bisson (film and television actor and director)
Reconnecting with nature
My first visit to Ontario, from Québec, was at about age 8. I have a distinct memory of arriving by car down the Don Valley Parkway. Jerry Rafferty's Baker Street was playing on the radio and I was completely amazed that there was such a massive green space in the middle o
Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site
Manilla originally collected from the sunken ship S.S. Duoro, located in the Western Isles, Sicily. Manillas such as this were considered to be 'slave trade money', as they were used as currency during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade during the early 15th century. They were often constructed from cop
#MyOntario
Share your trillium sightings
Trilliums, Ontario's official flower since 1937, bloom in mid-May. In addition to the white (grandiflorum) variety, trillium varieties also include red (erectum) and yellow (lutem). This photo of a red trillium was taken at the Fleetwood Creek Natural Area.
Did yo
Michael Runtz (educator, naturalist, author and nature photographer)
Drawn back to Algonquin
Being a lifelong naturalist whose goal has been to explore Ontario’s natural history, I’ve come to appreciate just how rich this province’s biodiversity is. The north boasts the southernmost tundra in the world, home to polar bears and Arctic fox. The south harbours vestige
W. Kelly
This table and chair belonged to my grandmother. She got it from her father who brought her and her two brothers to Canada just after the First World War. Her mother had died in childbirth. She showed me her father’s war medals when I was a boy. He’d fought in different wars in different parts of th